At the I/O demo of the then-new feature, a YouTube product manager sent a $500 Super Chat during a livestream by The Slo Mo Guys, YouTube stars who have millions of subscribers. The Super Chat triggered a horn to go off, which signaled a crowd of people to start nailing them with water balloons.

It seems Super Chat's uses aren't necessarily so lighthearted.

YouTube told the Journal late Friday that it had permanently banned Ralph's channel, "Ralph Retort," from its service for violating the platform's policies and terms of service. YouTube gets a cut of any money sent to celebs via Super Chat, and it also told the Journal that any proceeds from Super Chats that violate its hate-speech policy get donated to charity.

"Hate speech and content that promotes violence is prohibited on YouTube, and over the last two years we have invested in hiring more human reviewers and building smart detection technology to help catch and remove hateful comments, chats, and videos more quickly," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement emailed to CNET. "We have also been working over the last several months to refine our policies on who has access to monetization features, and while this work is ongoing, we are dedicated to continuing to improve in the fight against hate online."